SAMARA – Russia will take a pragmatic approach and will continue the deliveries of engines for the United States’ carrier rockets despite the sanctions Washington imposed on Moscow over the Ukrainian crisis, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Monday.

“We will continue working with the US on projects that are lucrative for us, but we will suspend those that are not,” Rogozin told reporters during a working trip to the Volga region.

“At present, the sales of engines for Atlas and Antares rockets in the United States favor Russia as the profits go directly for technological modernization of [Russian] enterprises [producing the engines],” he said.

The United States uses Russian-made NK-33 and RD-180 engines to power their fleet of Atlas and Antares space rockets.

Rogozin reminded that the space rocket engines were designed many years ago, but the US would not be able to cope without them in the nearest future.

He stressed that the US also acts pragmatically while introducing sanctions, since the producers of engines such as Energomash Corporation or JSC Kuznetsov have not been mentioned in the US Treasury’s Sectoral Sanctions Identification List that affects companies and institutions in defense, energy and banking sectors of the Russian economy.

Earlier this year, US and EU imposed targeted sanctions against a number of Russian officials and companies after Crimea’s reunification with Russia. The West sees sanctions as an adequate response to Moscow’s alleged involvement in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

The West then threatened to extend the sanctions, despite the Russian Foreign Ministry saying that their use is counterproductive and would also hurt Europe and the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the new sanctions required a careful look but warned that they could bring US-Russian ties to a dead end.